Two tight end sets worked wonders

Mike Doser

09/12/2002

With the Bills having two experienced tight ends on the roster in Jay Riemersma and Dave Moore, the talk was that the team would use more two tight end formations. But offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride and his players couldn't have envisioned that the run-heavy formation would have been as successful as it was against the Jets.

The Bills used Riemersma and Moore along the line, often with Larry Centers as fullback and Travis Henry as tailback in an I-formation. At other times, Gilbride took Centers out and added an extra receiver out wide in Peerless Price. The result was it created favorable matchups in the running game and allowed Henry to take the handoff and get some yards.

Seeing how well it worked, the team will certainly use more of that as the season progresses. But it was something they wanted to surprise the Jets with.

"As a matter of fact, we didn't show that in the preseason," said Henry. "But we worked on that in practice and that particular scheme was good against New York, just to show them a different look on offense. It confused them a lot because we had somebody to block for every defender. That would put me one on one with the DBs, which was something they weren't used to. The two-tight end stuff was basically successful for us. It helped the offensive line gain confidence. This game, alone, helped boost everybody's confidence that our football team can be something special."